Board votes to pay down the school building bonds

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

Galion school board pres­i­dent Den­nis Long hands retir­ing board mem­ber Marge McCum­ber a plaque for eight years of ser­vice to the school dis­trict at the board’s monthly meet­ing Dec. 8. Super­in­ten­dent Kathy Jen­ney, left, said she felt a par­tic­u­lar con­nec­tion with McCum­ber, since McCum­ber was on the board at the time Jen­ney was hired as super­in­ten­dent, and would miss her pres­ence at the meet­ings. For­mer board mem­ber Carl Stough showed up to the meet­ing to express his farewell, too. “For the past five or six years the com­mu­nity has been very sat­is­fied with the Galion city school dis­trict,” Stough said, which he attrib­uted in part to McCumber’s activ­ity on the board. “She was a boots-on-the-ground board mem­ber. She was always inter­ested in the new edu­ca­tional ideas that she had read about.” Galion Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion co-president Ryan Tan­ner added his com­men­da­tion. “You led us through dif­fi­cult times with the last admin­is­tra­tion,” he told McCum­ber. “Thank you and we’ll miss you.” Incom­ing board mem­ber Brian Owens will fill her seat start­ing at the Jan­u­ary orga­ni­za­tional meeting.

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

The Galion city board of edu­ca­tion voted at its Thurs­day, Dec. 8 meet­ing to use $36,000 from the gen­eral fund to pay down the school build­ing bonds. The trans­fer to the bond retire­ment fund was made because the schools have so far paid $49,797 less for elec­tric­ity this year than in the same period last year.

Oper­a­tions direc­tor Kevin Early attrib­uted the util­ity sav­ings to the new util­ity mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem that was installed over the sum­mer, which allowed him to track peak usage times and adjust behav­iors accord­ingly, and to using less air con­di­tion­ing over the sum­mer and clean­ing the build­ings one at a time so less light­ing was needed over­all. That prac­tice is called putting the build­ings in “unoc­cu­pied” mode. The energy-saving lights and sys­tems were installed over the sum­mer using funds bor­rowed under House Bill 264. Most areas of the school build­ings will be put in unoc­cu­pied mode again over Christ­mas break.

The school board also increased esti­mated resources from the Edu­ca­tion Jobs Grant by $12,753 since the Edu­ca­tion Jobs Fund awarded a sup­ple­men­tal grant for the 2011–2012 school year. The board also amended appro­pri­a­tions for that fund and approved a $20,500 advance from the gen­eral fund to cover the grant-funded expenses until the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion actu­ally pays the grant funds to the district.

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

The school board rec­og­nized the boys’ and girls’ cross coun­try teams at its Dec. 8 meet­ing for advanc­ing to county and league cham­pi­onships this year. The boys’ team won both those cham­pi­onships and qual­i­fied for region­als, so they received two cer­tifi­cates. In addi­tion, the board con­grat­u­lated girls’ regional qual­i­fier Jus­tine Yunker, who could not attend the meet­ing, and boys’ state qual­i­fier Chris McEl­ligot. Chris is also an Aca­d­e­mic All-Ohioan.

An Ohio K-12 Net­work fis­cal year 2012 grant for $7,200 was also received and the board increased the esti­mated resources and appro­pri­a­tions for that grant.

The board also approved sev­eral agree­ments. The school con­tracted with Mid Ohio Edu­ca­tional Ser­vice Cen­ter for school psy­chol­ogy ser­vices, mostly for preschool­ers, for $3,675 in the 2011–2012 school year. The board con­tracted with the North Cen­tral Ohio Edu­ca­tional Ser­vice Cen­ter at $76 per day to edu­cate Galion res­i­dent stu­dents in the Seneca County Youth Cen­ter. Bonuses total­ing $383 from the Edu­ca­tion Jobs Grant for seven Galion aides employed through the NCOESC were also approved.

Galion con­tracted with the Colonel Craw­ford and Mans­field City schools to edu­cate stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties. The board also approved mem­ber­ships with the Ohio School Boards Asso­ci­a­tion, at $5,379, and the Galion Area Cham­ber of Com­merce at $200.

The board also passed a res­o­lu­tion declar­ing its inten­tion to remain a client dis­trict of the Mid-Ohio Edu­ca­tional Ser­vice Cen­ter so the dol­lars ear­marked for ESC ser­vices for Galion stu­dents would go to that ESC. The res­o­lu­tion had to be made because of recent leg­isla­tive changes included in the state bud­get bill. The dec­la­ra­tion can be revised every two years.

Lastly, the board thanked sev­eral area orga­ni­za­tions for their dona­tions to the schools. Galion Build­ing and Loan gave 170 cal­cu­la­tors to the sixth grade class, a total value of $2,193. This was the 20th year that the bank donated cal­cu­la­tors to the sixth grade. Galion Rotar­i­ans gave dic­tio­nar­ies to third graders, a dona­tion worth $258. Dr. Thomas Fell­ner donated about $600 worth of tooth­brushes and tooth­paste to the ele­men­tary schools. Franklin Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Inc. (WQEL) donated $325 to the ath­letic depart­ment from its Fan Strand Con­tests at foot­ball games. The Craw­ford County Fam­ily and Chil­dren First coun­cil sent $500 to the cam­pus wear fund.

The school board will meet at 6:30 p.m. Thurs­day, Jan. 5, in the mid­dle school com­puter lab for its annual orga­ni­za­tional meet­ing. Den­nis Long will be pres­i­dent pro-tempore until the board elects its offi­cers at that meet­ing. The board will also set its meet­ing sched­ule for the year then.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Dec 12 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.